


Questions that never breathe.

by Kaesteranya



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesteranya/pseuds/Kaesteranya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You always knew he was an asshole. (So why do you bother?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions that never breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been way too long since I’ve done a fanfic for Bleach that deals in some sort of way with the canon and even LONGER since I’ve touched the series itself, so prepare for major suck. OTL
> 
> The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for December 8, 2009.

Ichimaru Gin is all smiles and indolent ease, ambling home from a mission, whistling a little song. He’s dirty as hell, splattered with guts and gore, but he’s wearing it easy on his shoulders like it’s the best damned kimono in his closet. With the way he moves, one would think he came home from a delightful party, not the latest blood bath that his master’s sent him off to.

 

He makes a big show out of failing to notice her by the gates, and Rangiku isn’t offended in the least. He does this sort of thing all the time, and besides: if she so much as twitched an eyebrow at his usual grade of Bastard, she’d never be able to live it down. So she scoffs and pushes herself off the wall that she’s been leaning against, like she hasn’t been standing around for more than half the evening, waiting and wondering.

 

“Well, well, well... if it isn’t Ran-chan! Really. You shouldn’t have.”

 

“Made it back alive again, did you?”

 

“You sound surprised.”

 

“Shouldn’t I be?”

 

“Aw, I’m hurt!”

 

She takes a swig from her gourd full of booze rather than grace him with an actual answer, turns away rather than give him the satisfaction of seeing her angry, or, worse yet, disappointed. Upset.

 

“They wanted to make sure that you don’t skip out from pushing the papers.”

 

“Bureaucracy is _such_ a waste of time, though.”

 

“So is complaining when you can’t do anything about it.”

 

Best not to think about how it’s ridiculously easy for him to catch up, to just slip right in beside her, fall into that pace of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other with his hands folded behind his head and his face turned up to catch the evening breeze like he isn’t the biggest jerk in the world. Like he isn’t so different yet exactly the way he used to be, maybe _more_ than he ought to be of that lethal and smiling whatever-it-was that she ran into years ago, in the heat and relentlessness of living the life of a stray, of one of the many invisible ones.

 

Best not to sneak a sideward glance at his eyes or his lips, not to listen to the sound of his voice and count down the seconds to the inevitable end of whatever it is that her and him could have had, of her and him never walking home on a cold night together ever again.

 

“Thinking about drinking out?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Shucks. Too bad I can’t join you~ got places to be.”

 

What Rangiku does not do is bring up a name, speak of the many little things she has noticed about him and that other one, the one that everyone seems to like even if he’s too smooth to be good, too pious to be blameless. What she does instead is take another swig, taste the bitter and the heat, and keep on walking.


End file.
